For most of us, lifting is not something that we do regularly and actually we generally don’t have to move anything much heavier than a briefcase day to day. However there are times when even the most static among us find ourselves forced to heave a sofa across a living room, or to lift a box of our possessions onto a moving truck. When this happens it is actually all the more dangerous as we are out of practice and don’t have the right muscles in place nor the right technique.
Lifting wrong can result in a trapped nerve, pulled muscle, slipped disk, crushed foot or just a box of broken ornaments, so how do you go about lifting correctly and ensuring that this doesn’t happen? Here we will look at how to lift correctly to protect your spine and to ensure you don’t drop anything.
Tip 1: Lift From the Legs
This is the one everyone knows, and we tend to shout it almost spontaneously at people we know are lifting things – ‘lift with the legs!’. But what precisely does it mean?
Well what it really means is don’t lift with the spine. In other words, don’t allow the movement of the spine to be what lifts the box up off of the floor. This means that you must not bend over with your spine and then bend back up to lift the box. The logical alternative of course is to lift with the legs and to do this you should first squat down as though you were a frog, and then just stand back up by pushing through the ground with your feet. When squatting you will be low enough hopefully to tuck your hands underneath the box, but at the same time you will be able to keep your back straight. (Note that that said ‘straight’ and not straight up – you are perfectly entitled to bend slightly forward as long as you keep your upper body aligned with your center of gravity).
Tip 2: Don’t Twist
Lifting by bending the spine is the rookie mistake, but even pros sometimes will forget and use their back in another way by twisting it in order to drag something. In other words you might move something that’s in front of you from the right to the left by grabbing it and then pivoting at your back. This is a sure fire way to trap a nerve, so make sure instead that you always stand behind the item and pull or push.
Tip 3: Stretch
You would stretch before the gym (hopefully) and this is no different really as a form of exertion. Make sure then that you stretch your joints and your muscles in order to get the blood flowing there and to limber up so that you don’t pull anything or cause any other problems. When stretching make sure that you gently push your way through the movements rather than ‘bobbing’ into them which can actually be harmful in itself.
Tip 4: Get a Good Grip
Injuries can be caused even with perfect technique if you end up dropping whatever you’re lifting onto your foot, and this is also a sure fire way to destroy all of your things. Instead of doing that then, make sure that you get your hands right underneath whatever it is you want to lift and make sure that you are holding on well. If you are lifting cardboard boxes with lots in them then it makes good sense to tape the bottoms with some masking tape to avoid things dropping through.
Tip 5: Make it Easy
You should also aim to make things as easy as possible for yourself – and some forward planning before you start moving things can help a lot. Make sure that you clear the space around what you want to lift as much as possible, and that you remove anything from the floor that you could otherwise trip over. Then meanwhile you should also ensure that the boxes you’re carrying are as light as possible by potentially emptying some of the items from the heavier box into a lighter one.
Tip 6: Get Help
And last of all make sure that you have people helping you and who can help you to lift. This not only reduces the amount of weight you are lifting on your own, but it also means you have a failsafe – someone who can catch the box or sofa if it should start to fall. In short it’s well worth waiting a while to get help rather than trying to rush it yourself and getting hurt.